Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-08-27
In OLD MEXICO.
THE FAMOUS SUGAR HACIENDA
OF DUKES DE MONOCHROME.
Temples Built by Unknown Hands
in the Morning. of Mexico's His
tory-Ruins. of Xochicalco.

the lIuu an village AcdptilcinSo, II iaii-
Gus ha' .ienda which still belongs to lineal
desce ndaRts of the Cortez family, known
in the last century as the Dukes dc Mon
teleone 1t is one Of the finest sugar plan
tations IA all Mexico, its average yield be-
ing $4,000 pounds per annum-besides
coffee, tobacco bananas, pine-apples and
Other products.
TIE name of the hacienda is Atlaca-
fnulco, and like many others in this coun-
arg, is little kingdom within itself, quite
Independent of the rest of the world It's
fort-like walls have withstood unnumbered
raids by robbers and revolutionists and
within them are buildings and people
enough to form a respectable village.
Here men, poems and horses are reckoned
by the hundred, and the owner thereof is
absolute monarch of all he surveys. Be
sides fields of sugar-cane, stretching far as
the eye can reach, are coffee groves with
FIFTY THOUSAND VIGOROUS TREES.
$50 the overseer tells u.s. putting forth
white blossoms, green fruit and ripened
berries at once; while beyond, stretching
away to the distant hills are plains where
uncounted heads of cattle and horses roam
at will. Even the far-off hills, with their
lodes of precious metal, and the mining
hamlets clustered among them, belong to
the same estate; besides miles of uninhab-
tied valleys and untrodden canyons where
deer, quail pumas' and other game make
happy hunting-gronnds.
There is great casa for boiling the
1 l.
from year TO year; an immense adobe
house containing machinery for extracting
the juices of the cane ; refining rooms, dry
ing sheds, etc, all on the most generous
scale. Then there is another big mill for
separating coffee beans from the chaff;
sheds in which coffee is dried and assorted
a distillery where aguardiente (rum) is
made from the refuse of the sugar mills;
besides enormous granaries, barns, stables,
store-houses and bakeries; a small church
belonging to the estate a "store" for sup
plying the poems with every necessity from
bacon to prayer-books; machine shops, a
smithy, where farm implements are re-
paired and horses shod-in short, every
requisite for sustaining several hundred
people with no assistance from the outside
world. Truly, to be a Mexican haciendddo
WI tiliS magnificent pldH Is better imam TO
be an old world prince.
Sugar was unknown to the ancient
Aztecs, who made syrup from wild honey
and the juice of the omnipresent century
plant, or maguey. Sugar-cane was first
brought by the Spaniards to the Canary
islands, then to Santo Domingo thence to
Cuba, and naturally soon afterwards to
Mexico. Though Cortez's descendants
ala hot L.. IL II
illustrious ancestor, it is a fact that the
first sugar-canes were planted in this coun-
try in 1920 by one Senior Don Pedro de
Athena. The first sugar-mills built by
& the Span,ards were worked By hydraulic
wheels, not, as now, by horses or mules;
and the first cylinders were constructed by
/ Gonzalo de Nclosa. Baron Humboldt, who
examined
CoRTEZ' MILL,
Tells us that the conqueror left several
fiourishing sugar plantations near Cuyoa-
can, in the Valley of Mexico, where now
lowing, it is supposed, to the cutting down
of the forests it is too cold for any cane
TO grow.
Most of our three days stay at Atlaca-
mulco was spent out of doors. ana every
meal-except the early chocolate served
IN bedZ%ds eaten under the lines and
pomegranates of the courtyard, or in the
adjacent garden. The latter was one of
the most beautiful ] have seen in this land
of beautiful gardens. Its lemons, oranges
olives, aguacates and other tropical fruits
blend their green branches and odorous
blossoms into natural arches so thick that
even the southern sun cannot penetrate
them by a single golden arrow Springs
of clear water are directed all over the
plantation for irrigation purposes, and in
the garden their courses are broken by arti-
hcial cascades and waterfalls, fringed by
ferns and lilies, the paths upon either side
bordered by pansies and hedges of rose-trees.
Ruby red cardinals golden candelerus,
paroquets, and other bright-winged birds
are forever pluming themselves in the cool
shadows, but it is popularity of these
gorgeously -feathered tribes of the tropics
that none of them can sing rs well as the
plainest brown bird of the North.
Atlacamulco has another attraction.
very rare in the cactus country-that of
rich soft grass. Rejecting the customary
hammocks, We stretched ourselves upon it
and luxuriated in the warm air heavy
with perfumes, and wished that life might
last forever in such an Eden. About
wonderful but little known
RUINS OF xoCHIcALco.
Whicb.pone who come this way should
fail toSee. The best route by which to
reach them follows the celebrated AGA
pulco trail y to the Indian hamlet called
Xochitl (the fower), or to the adjacent
hacienda Of the same name, where Il guide
and horses may be obtained For more
than three hundred years the highway be-
tween that southern port and Mexico city
was constantly trodden by countless b,u'ros
laden with merchandise. But since new
routes have been opened across the CONT
nent picturesque Acapulco which in
>s9den times was a busy maritime city, has
fallen into comparative disuse TO it
came, and from it sailed all those historic
galleons which performed their portion of
the voyage between the Indies and Spain
The voyage between Manila and the Mex
lean coast occupied six months, and on ar.
irving there the rich freightage was trans
ported overland by thousand donkevs.
and such portion as was not sold in the
City of Mexico was sent to Vera Cruz, and
there reshipped for Spain. History tells
us that the cargo of a single galleon fire.
quently reached the value of two million
year, its advent was anxiousiy looked for
by every class of people as well as by mer-
chants and marines. 1t brought calico and
muslins, silks, Grape, pearls and spices; and
carried back gold, silver, cochineal, cocoa,
and sometimes, few monks or hidalgos as
passengers. livery body remembers the
charming picture of those COLDER DAYS
given by Bret Bart in his Lost GaEeon:"
n sixteen hundred ard fory-one,
me regular yes-ly galleon,
1.scen wlth odorouS gum and spice
!ndla cotton ane India rice
Aud the richest 81 ks of far Cathav
Mas due st Acapulco bay
me trains were waiting inside the walls
LIE wives of ssiiozs thronged the town
The traders sat by their empty stalls
AndShe Viceroy himself came down
But far more aneiaat and interest;psi
than institutions of trade between S,ain
and the Indies is Xochiealco, the Hill of
Flowers" and the ruins which cover il
The hill is about 800 fec high. and il
base is surrounded by yery distinct traces
of deep, wide ditch. Five spiral ter
races mount to It's summit, the walls that
support them being built of ssone iGned
by cement. and stia quite perfect. Atreg-